Saturday, March 31, 2012

Cake pops!

Now I initially got this idea from bakerella.com, pure genius! Bite sized balls of adorable goodness! So finally after a long and slightly expensive shopping trip this is what I came up with. Also a week before Easter I thought why not bunnies!

While searching for lolly pop sticks at Spotlight I found this:
Usually I believe in making everything from scratch but in this case I figured I’d use a mix out of a box just in case something went horribly wrong.

Well a few things went wrong, first I used the entire mix for the 18 cake balls and this is what happened:


The mixture over-flowed horribly. I suggest using half the mix. The cake balls come out perfect though! Also because of how the lid is made the top half of each ball wasn’t browned but I suggest doing the toothpick test about 10min into baking so you don’t burn the bottom.

And then something else went even more horribly wrong; after the balls had cooled I went to attach the sticks. To secure the stick to the ball I dipped the top of the stick in to melted chocolate and then into the ball. However because I used sponge cake mix the cake was too light, the stick went straight through and the entire batch of cakes pops was unusable. Note to self use dense cake mix: chocolate mud cake maybe.

After a (cider) break I thought why not go old school!


Traditionally cake pops are made from crumbling cake, mixing with frosting and rolling bite sized balls. For best cake pops refrigerate until they are firm enough insert a stick into.    





And honestly this was so easy. Add enough frosting to mould the crumbs into balls and be careful because the frosting is super sweet. The beauty of this method is that you can use any cake mix. I used sponge cake mix that failed me the first time around and it turned out beautifully.

    

I used plastic and wooden sticks. I found that for the larger cake pops the wooden sticks support the weight better. Once the sticks are secure start dipping into melted chocolate. When the whole cake pop is coated gently tap the hand that is holding the cake pop to drip off any excess chocolate and start decorating! As I said my inspiration was Easter so to make bunny ears cut out a small heart shape out of modelling paste.


Cut in half and pinch the top to resemble ears. Let it harden on a curved object, I used a rolling pin, to give it a natural curve and petal dust pink for the pink bits inside the ears.




 
Attaching it is slightly tricky. Once the cake pop is completely coated in chocolate but before the chocolate dries poke 2 holes on the top wide enough to fit the ears. Dip the bottom tip of the ears in melted chocolate (to help it stick) and insert in the hole.    



Enjoy!

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